3,000 ’suvidha’ centres to be set up in Punjab villages

CHANDIGARH - To ensure better and hassle-free services to the people of rural areas in Punjab, 3,037 ‘e-gram suvidha’ (village help) centres will be set up in the villages across the state, at a cost of Rs.90 crore, an official said here Friday.

“Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has already given the green signal to the project. An empowered committee, comprising administrative secretaries of various departments, today (Friday) gave in-principle approval to implement it within a year,” a government spokesperson said.

“These ‘e-gram suvidha’ centres will ensure the delivery of basic people-friendly services like delivery of old-age pension, registration of people for pension under the categories of handicapped, widows and disabled persons,” he added.

The spokesman said the centres would be set up to offer citizen-oriented services in a comfortable and efficient manner.

He said at present a large number of services are being delivered at the village panchayat (council) level manually, resulting in inefficiency, inordinate delays and a lot of harassment to the beneficiaries and making it impossible to measure the standard of services and their effective supervision.

The spokesman added that 300 police station outreach centres will also be opened in the state for counselling services to resolve disputes related to domestic violence, dowry-related and various other crimes related to women.

“Punjab would be the first state in India to implement community policing at such a large scale,” he pointed out.